I was contacted by email for a phone interview for a Senior ASIC Design Engineer position. The phone interview went alright, lasting for about an hour and 20 minutes. The interviewer was nice and asked me many technical questions, which I answered. At the end of the interview, he asked me when I could appear for an on-site interview.

So, I went for an on-site interview about 10 days later. This on-site interview process was the part that seemed very strange and also not right to me. It turned out that they called a whole bunch of candidates for interviews on the same day. There were two batches of interviewees: morning and afternoon. I was selected for the morning batch, which started at 9 am. The first half-hour was a presentation about the group, with all the candidates sitting together. Most of these candidates were RCGs; I think I was the only senior-level person in that group. After that, the interviewees had four rounds of interviews, each for 45 minutes. I was very surprised that every single one of those four interviews was conducted by verification engineers (not design) and most questions were on verification. The questions were not difficult enough; it seemed to me that they were prepared with RCGs in mind. I had no problem answering them. In any case, all the interviewers were nice and friendly. However, every single one of them asked me what kind of position I was interested in: design or verification. My resume clearly stated that I am a design engineer and looking for a similar position, so I didn't really understand the reason for this ambiguity.

After the technical interviews were over at noon, the candidates had to return to the same conference room. We were told to help ourselves to lunch with some food that was waiting for us in the same room. There was no going out for lunch or anything. The food (very few items; I could only have salad and bread) was poor. I have never before seen a company treat interview candidates this way. The whole setup seemed unprofessional. What is even more ridiculous is that I did not even get to meet the hiring manager for the position. Come on... what is the point of an on-site interview then?

About three business days later, I received an email stating that I was not selected. I was a bit disappointed because I don't think I performed poorly in the interviews; however, I wouldn't call it a huge surprise either, given the unprofessional and incorrect interview process. When I was not even questioned on the area of work for the opening, that certainly raises questions about the fairness and credibility of the interview and selection process.

Mostly RCG level questions.